By ELAINE KURTENBACH and MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writers

Wall Street was headed lower early Wednesday after a major U.S. retailer blamed its grim forecast on tariff concerns and oil prices rose on a media report that Israel may be planning an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Futures for the S&P 500 were down 0.5% before bell and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 0.8%. Futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq also fell 0.5%.

Target reported that sales fell more than expected in the first quarter and the retailer warned they’ll slip this year as consumers, worried about tariffs, pull back on spending.

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Target said it now expects a low-single digit decline in sales for 2025 and adjusted earnings per share to be anywhere from $7 to $9. When Target reported its fourth-quarter results in March, it forecast earnings per share for 2025 to be between $8.80 and $9.80 per share.

A growing number of companies have recently said tariffs and uncertainty about the economy are making it difficult to guess what the upcoming year will bring. Others, including Walmart, have said they’ll have to raise prices to offset the widespread import taxes imposed by President Donald Trump.

Markets in recent weeks have recovered much of their losses from earlier in the year as Trump has delayed or rolled back many of the stiff tariffs he’s imposed in an attempt to compel companies to move manufacturing back to the U.S. Investors are hopeful that Trump will lower his tariffs further after reaching trade deals with other countries.

On the winning side Wednesday was the hardware store chain Lowe’s, which hit Wall Street’s sales and profit targets and kept its forecast for the year unchanged.

Oil prices rose close to 1% after a CNN report cited unnamed intelligence officials saying Israel may be preparing for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Oil prices tend to rise with conflicts that might disrupt oil supplies.

U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 50 cents to $62.53 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international standard, rose 48 cents to $65.86 per barrel.

In talks on the nuclear issue, Iranian officials have warned they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s program if a deal isn’t reached.

Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX fell 0.2%, the CAC 40 in Paris declined 0.5% and Britain’s FTSE 100 was virtually unchanged.

In Asia, Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 0.6% to 37,298.98. Gains have been limited by the continued worries over higher tariffs Trump has imposed on many U.S. trading partners since taking office. Earlier this week, Japanese officials said they were insisting all of his higher tariffs on imports from Japan be removed as part of talks with Washington.

Japan’s exports have slowed due to the tariffs, the government reported Wednesday. Exports to the U.S., Japan’s largest single trading partner, fell almost 2% year-on-year in April and the annual rate of growth in its global exports slowed to 2% from 4% in March, preliminary customs data showed.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng picked up 0.6% to 23,827.78, while the Shanghai Composite index edged 0.2% higher to 3,387.57.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 surged 0.5% to 8,386.00, while the Kospi in South Korea climbed 0.9%, to 2,625.58.

Taiwan’s Taiex advanced 1.3% and India’s Sensex gained 0.5%.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar fell to 143.81 Japanese yen from 144.51 yen. The euro rose to $1.1320 from $1.1284.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Rapper and actor Kid Cudi is expected to testify at the Sean “Diddy” Combs sex trafficking trial, taking the witness stand either Wednesday or Thursday to tell the jury about his brief relationship 14 years ago with Combs ex-girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie.

Cassie testified last week that Combs was enraged when she left him for a period of time in 2011 and began dating Cudi, whose legal name is Scott Mescudi. She said Combs left a large bruise on her back where he kicked her as she left his Los Angeles home for the last time that year.

Prosecutors have contended in court filings that Combs was so upset that he arranged to have Cudi’s convertible firebombed.

A prosecutor said at the end of Tuesday’s court session that Mescudi will be the third witness after a federal agent finishes testifying about what investigators found last year when they raided Combs’ home in Florida.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges that he leveraged his fame and fortune to oversee a two-decade-long racketeering enterprise that controlled Cassie and others through threats and violence.

Sean “Diddy” Combs looks on as defense attorney Nicole Westmoreland cross examines Dawn Richard during Combs’ sex trafficking and racketeering trial in Manhattan federal court, Monday, May 19, 2025, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

His lawyers say evidence in the case reflects domestic violence, not anything amounting to a criminal racket or sex trafficking.

Cassie testified last week that Combs arranged for her to meet Cudi several times in 2011 to work on music. She said her relationship with Cudi began late in the year and she got a burner phone so the two could communicate without Combs learning about it.

Cassie said she and Combs had broken up at the time, although they still engaged in so-called “freak-offs” that involved sexual performances with male escorts that Combs watched and sometimes participated in. It was during one of those “freak-offs” that Combs picked up her regular phone and noticed communications that revealed Cassie was seeing Cudi, Cassie said.

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On Tuesday, Cassie’s mother, Regina Ventura, testified that she received an email in December 2011 from Cassie saying that Combs was so angry about her relationship with Cudi that he planned to release sexually explicit videos of her and send someone to hurt Cassie and Cudi.

Afterward, Regina Ventura said, she received a demand from Combs for $20,000. Scared for her daughter’s safety, she went to the bank and sent Combs the money, only to have it returned by Combs days later.

Cassie testified that Cudi came to visit her at her mother’s Connecticut home around Christmas in 2011 and stayed for three or four days. She said she broke up with him.

“It was just too much,” she said. “Too much danger, too much uncertainty of, like, what could happen if we continued to see each other.”

Cassie said she told her family she was going to Los Angeles after the holidays to “get to work.” But instead, she said, she traveled after New Year’s to meet Combs in Arizona, where he had gone to visit a college with his son. They resumed their relationship.

When Cassie and Combs were out of the country, Combs told her that Cudi’s car would be blown up and Combs wanted Cudi’s friends there to see it, Cassie said.

After a rainy Tuesday, Wednesday is bringing more wet weather.

The Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service expects more rain and drizzle for the metro on Wednesday, with a high of 51

Rain showers are likely for most of the area today, the Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service reports, but will taper off from north to south tonight.

“We’re done with the rain for a couple of days as warmer temperatures return, keeping us pleasant into next week,” the weather service predicted in a post on X.

However, the weather service reports that there are “some chances” for showers on Saturday and Sunday of the holiday weekend. Memorial Day is on Monday.

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A former Cloquet, Minn., police officer has been found guilty of stealing from a 78-year-old woman suffering from dementia.

Laci Silgjord was found guilty Monday of one count of felony attempted theft by swindle for over $35,000 over the estate of Joan Arney, a Cloquet woman suffering from dementia, whom then-police officer Silgjord was given temporary guardianship over shortly before Arney died in 2020.

“My thoughts today are with the late Joan Arney and her family: they should never have been exploited the way Laci Silgjord shamelessly exploited them,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office prosecuted that case, said in a statement. “In trying to cheat Ms. Arney and her family out of her estate, Silgjord betrayed her oath to her badge, her department, and the community she was supposed to serve.”

The court found that Silgjord, 37, represented herself to Arney’s bank as her fiduciary, despite lacking legal authority to do so, gained access to the victim’s bank accounts and attempted to inherit her entire estate, worth more than $150,000.

In 2023, the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which investigates individuals or organizations that steal from Medicaid and abuse vulnerable people, charged Silgjord with three counts relating to financially exploiting Arney.

Silgjord was acquitted of the more serious felony charge of financially exploiting a vulnerable adult, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years and/or a fine of $100,000, and a gross misdemeanor charge of financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult.

According to an investigation conducted by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, Silgjord first met Arney in person after Arney called the Cloquet Police Department to report that her purse had been stolen.

Three months later, Silgjord and other officers checked in on Arney at her home after she mistakenly sent mail to the police department. After she did not answer the door, officers entered her house to find Arney in a critical medical condition. She was brought to Community Memorial Hospital in Cloquet before being transferred to St. Luke’s in Duluth.

Arney had no surviving children and an estranged husband, Roger Arney, from whom she had been separated since 2013 but remained legally married.

Shortly after being hospitalized, St. Luke’s petitioned the St. Louis County District Court for an order appointing an emergency guardian for Arney. While visiting her, a hospital social worker asked Silgjord to serve as her emergency guardian. Silgjord accepted and was granted temporary guardianship over Arney for two months.

According to the investigation, records from St. Luke’s show Arney had significantly diminished mental capacity, having had a stroke and suffering from dementia. Arney reportedly did not know the current year, believed the hospital to be “the place where trains switch cars,” and referred to people in the room who were not present.

While visiting Arney, Silgjord recorded conversations by her bedside. In the conversations, Silgjord tells Arney that she is her “new grandma” and that she loves her. Arney, in turn, told Silgjord that she loves her.

Despite not having the legal authority to access Arney’s bank accounts, 10 days after being appointed guardianship, Silgjord provided her guardianship paperwork to Arney’s bank and was granted access to her accounts, which had a combined total of $43,120.

After obtaining access, Silgjord transferred tens of thousands of dollars between the accounts. Bank records obtained during the investigation show Silgjord wrote a check from Arney’s checking account dated Oct. 26, 2020, to Atkin’s Funeral Home for $6,000. Silgjord also said she used money from Arney’s account to pay Arney’s power bill.

Arney died Oct. 28, 2020, without a will, ending Silgjord’s emergency guardianship. Silgjord assumed responsibility for the funeral arrangements, but failed to alert Arney’s legal heir, her estranged husband Roger.

After learning about Joan’s death in a newspaper obituary, Roger met with Silgjord at a Perkins restaurant. When Roger asked whether her guardianship expired, Silgjord told him she was “in charge” and ensuring Joan’s wishes were being met, failing to mention that she was no longer Joan’s guardian.

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